


Lift the Veil

by ChatterBoxomie



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, Blood Magic, Circle Mages, Confusion, Depression, Despair, Evanuris, F/M, Fear, Multi, Other, Possessions, Tragedy, Violence, You'll see what I mean, and I don't want to give anything away, eventually, everything is modern and cole is confused, everything is modern and it's solas' fault, for now, free mages, human/spirit relationship, it's hard to explain in the tags, lots and lots of it, mentions of cutting, mentions of oppression, modern world crossover, no Chantry, no Templars, no dwarves, no elves - Freeform, no qunari, spirits and demons, the Fade doing Fade things, the evanuris are pissed, this girl is hella confused, this is gonna be a wild ride, unfair reality, unwitting cruelty, you'll all figure it out soon enough
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 01:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10911411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChatterBoxomie/pseuds/ChatterBoxomie
Summary: You, the reader, are a young woman who falls asleep to a vastly different reality than the one you wake up to. When you closed your eyes, everything was "normal" - humans were the only species to have ever "won" the game of Evolution, magic was a fantasy, "Andraste" was unknown to all, the "chantry" functioned as a special hall for a church, and the Templars were just an extinct concept of the Christian crusades.That same night, you had a strange dream, one you couldn't explain if you wanted to, and for the first time in your life, you didn't feel alone in your head. Of course, like anyone else would choose to do, you ignore it, and get up in the morning, and don't give it any extra thought.However, something is wrong, now. Something you can't name, or place. And while you're trying to figure it all out, you can't shake that feeling from before, that you're not alone - and it's not just "in your own head". You start to feel like you're seeing things, like the shadows around you are moving; you start to feel "haunted".And to make matters worse, your own body is starting to betray you.What's happening to you? Are you dying, is the world going mad - or are these all symptoms of something far worse?





	Lift the Veil

“In a world of diminishing mystery, the unknown persists.”

\- Jhumpa Lahiri, _The Lowland_

You were sleeping, curled on your side, eyes squeezed shut, when you heard it: a noise you couldn’t describe in words, a _sound_ , like a dozen planes soaring overhead, at all once – it reminded you of when you were a child, and believed the sky to be made up of water that was being held-in-place by something – God, perhaps (or _the gods_ , plural) – and theorized that one day, the sky would “fall” and drown everyone on Earth.

That’s what it sounded like: the sky “falling”.

You should have felt alarmed, or, at the very least, mildly concerned (for, rather unfortunately, you did not know how to swim), but you didn’t stir from your comatose state. You wrinkled your nose, and curled in tighter on yourself, the tears you had shed before scratching at your cheeks, pulling against the movements of your eyes – and then everything suddenly felt **_wrong_**.

Off.

There was a shift in the air, heavy like a weight on your chest, and you didn’t know why, but you were terrified of opening your eyes. Like you expected to see something standing in the corner of your room, and weren’t sure you were ready to.

You told yourself it was just a dream, _just paranoia_ , just the chill from your air conditioner unit that was causing the monumental drop in temperature – and you convinced yourself to turn your back to the sensation, to “ignore it”.

Until you felt it shift close enough for you to hear it breathing.

Your eyes shot open, and you sat up in bed – or _meant_ to.

Imagine your own surprise when you found yourself sitting on the hard, unforgiving carpeting of an unfamiliar room. Filled with an unpleasant mixture of confusion, curiosity, and dread, you shakily pulled yourself up with the help of a nearby chair ( _old_ , fashioned from wood and draped with a red cloth), only to find yourself standing underneath a low ceiling made of stone and what-you-assumed-was-marble. Your eyes were trying to adjust to the dim lighting, as you could make out no sunlight streaming in from the large windows at the far end of the room, but as they began to do so, your vision began feeding you more information about your surroundings.

You were standing underneath what you could only assume was a second-floor balcony of-sorts, and the room was furnished with red carpeting that matched the cloth draped over the chair that sat, vacant, to your left. The “room” was more of a large hall, extending far beyond your vision to the right, as well as to the left. Before the windows that you noticed earlier stood a statue erected from stone of an unfamiliar woman, her visage blank and unseeing, looking towards the sky as if longing to be elsewhere, a crown sitting atop her head. Surrounding this statue were candles of all sizes, and lining the pillars along the sides of the hallway were more figures of stone, all unfamiliar, holding out sconces (or candle-holders?). The woman was clad in armor, you noticed ( _an impressive sight_ , you might add), and hanging from the rafters above were drapes emblazoned with images that resembled scarlet suns.

Above you came the dim glow of many more candles, and you could almost see the furniture on the second floor above you. All in all, it was an impressive sight.

You took a step forward, vaguely conscious of your half-undressed state, and your fingers lowered to tug at the bottom of your blouse. Your head turned, this way and that, trying to figure out where you were, what this place was, and why you were alone.

It all vaguely resembled a church.

(Of sorts.)

Was that statue of a saint? And if so, what sort of church was this?

(Your own mother had forced you to attend sermons and masses many times before, and so, you could safely say that you weren’t certain what sort of religious denomination this place was supposed to represent. It certainly wasn’t Protestant, or Lutheran – right?)

(And who was that woman? This place seemed to be dedicated to her. Perhaps it was a shrine?)

(But… idolatry was against the beliefs of most Abrahamic religions, wasn’t it?)

You weren’t sure _what_ to think, but you were certainly beginning to feel intrigued (mostly frightened, because you had no idea where you were, or _why_ you were here – but intrigued, all the same).

And that was when you heard it: whispering. Voices, several of them, whispering to one another, it seemed. You were prepared to ignore it all until you heard your own name echo through the pillars.

“ _Mabel_.”

“ _Mabel_.”

“ _Mabel_ …”

“ _Mabel_.”

You looked around, once more, several times – turning your head left and right, up and down, craning your neck and standing on your toes to try and see over the balcony rails – but could see no one else. You _were_ alone – so why were you hearing whispers as if you were surrounded by other people?

Sufficiently spooked, you decided to explore the seemingly-vacant hall around you – maybe to find your way out, maybe to discover someone else, maybe to run directly into a trap. It almost didn’t matter _what_ you did, so long as you didn’t remain exactly where you had awoken.

No matter how many steps you took, though, the whispers only seemed to grow louder, more urgent; _desperate_ , even. As if someone, or some _thing_ , was trying to rouse your attention.

You threw a glance over your shoulder, and saw only that same empty chair.

That same glimmer of a red sun.

“ ** _Hello?_** ” you called out, voice echoing through what you now-assumed was the chantry of a cathedral, or chapel. No response came, as you had expected.

Even the whispers had quieted, by now.

“ ** _Hello!_** ” you called out, once more, desperation edging your voice, the fear furrowing your brows. You blinked, once, and found that you were still there, in that same hall.

It… wasn’t a dream. But it _felt_ like one.

Or, maybe it _was_ a dream, and _didn’t_ feel one?

You weren’t sure of anything, anymore. Everything felt **_wrong_**.

You couldn’t recognize anything, and you were alone, vulnerable, unarmed; standing in only a blouse with bare feet.

There was a pair of large double-doors at the far end of the hall, but you feared what would happen if you approached them, feared having proof of your waking state.

If you were awake, you had been abducted. But by whom? A cult?

You continued forward, towards the altar by the windows, and, with a sparing glance thrown over your shoulder, you ascended the steps towards the candles that littered the floor surrounding the statue. The armored woman now loomed over you, and you were filled with an unfamiliar sense of relief, of solemn awe, as well as a quieter, sharper discomfort.

Something shifted in the corner of your eye, and when you peered up, you saw that the windows were now filled with light. The candles remained lit.

“What… what _is_ this place?” you found yourself murmuring aloud, turning to face the rest of the hall, once more. And that was when you saw him: a man, standing alone in the shadows of the balcony from which you had just departed.

You couldn’t make out his facial features, hidden from view beneath the wide brim of what you assumed was his hat, but you were undeniably aware that while you were unarmed, there was a glint from the darkness that could have been a blade, or the barrel of a gun.

Growing uneasy, once more, you dared not move, or breathe too suddenly, fearing that the slightest provocation could place you in a suddenly-dangerous situation. And there you remained, for a minute, two, five, silently watching the figure, never taking your eyes off him, while, you assumed, he watched you, in return.

Neither of you said anything, or did anything, to indicate you were any more alive than the carvings of stone surrounding you – but just when you were beginning to think that maybe he _wasn’t_ real, that maybe it _was_ just another statue (as you could not even see his chest expanding, from your vantage point), he took a single step forward.

The terror in your heart rushed forward, pressing against your lungs so forcefully that you gasped for air – and found yourself sitting up in your bed, alone, in the dead of night.

Panting, your fingers scrabbled for your phone on your nightstand.

The numbers glared out at you from the too-bright screen: _3:04_.

It took you a painfully-long minute to settle your racing heart, the panic that had seized your bones, after studying every shadow in the confines of your small, cramped bedroom. You were alone, this time – completely so. No whispers in your ears, no man standing in the shadows – just you, in your bed, sweat on your brow and heart in your throat.

Muttering to yourself about nothing in particular, you dropped back down into the safety of your pillows, and fell asleep, once more ( _almost instantly_ ). This time, none of your dreams were quite so vivid as the one you’d had before, and when you awoke in the morning, you only vaguely remembered candles in a cathedral.

As well as the man whom you had spotted, several times, tailing you as the images in your head faded and replaced themselves with different ones. You didn’t know who he was, or why you kept seeing him, but decided, as you stood yawning in your kitchen, to chalk it up to being “a figment of your imagination”.

And that was that.

Or so you _thought_.

As you were about to find out, nothing was _ever_ quite that simple. **_Not anymore._**


End file.
